Fragment van deurlijst van Chiesa di San Pietro in Albano 1764

Giovanni Battista Piranesi made this print of a fragment of a door frame from the Chiesa di San Pietro in Albano in the 18th century. Piranesi was a Venetian artist famous for his etchings of Roman architecture. But he wasn't just an artist. Piranesi was also an antiquarian, and his prints reflect the 18th-century obsession with ancient Rome. This interest was tied to the rise of Neoclassicism, an aesthetic and cultural movement that looked to classical antiquity for inspiration. The architecture and decorative arts of this period, rediscovered from sites such as Pompeii and Herculaneum, offered a model of order and reason that was seen as a response to the perceived excesses of the Baroque. Piranesi's work speaks to this revival but also to the beginnings of an institutionalized history of art and taste, where ancient forms are collected, catalogued, and recirculated, shaping our understanding of value and beauty. To understand more, one might explore the history of archaeology, of art academies, and of the Grand Tour.